Village Pizza vs. Easthampton Diner

We’re now in full stride in our Easthampton Valley Challenge, pitting Village Pizza against it’s across-the-street rival Easthampton Diner. I haven’t had the pizza from either place, despite living in Easthampton for 3+ years (Antonio’s was always my go-to), so I was super curious to see what they was like. One of the things I love about this project is getting a chance to try pizzas I might never have given a shot. In fact, I actually didn’t even consider the Easthampton Diner as a possible competitor until someone mentioned they did takeout pizza, so I did a last minute update to our bracket and added them in!

Tonight we had a large group of 13 tasters, with a handful who were new to the challenge, so there were some VPC vets and some newbies, but with the new “simplified” categories I think everyone got a chance to contribute.

Village Pizza

Pretty innocuous in a shopping plaza, but who knows what lies beneath those tar patches!

I was able to use my $5 off coupon from the Valley Quarterly and they include a 2 liter of soda for any order over $30, so I was able to leave completely satisfied with myself. Plus the staff was super friendly, so that was a nice bonus!

Easthampton Diner

I have not and probably will not try the ALL YOU CAN EAST PASTA, but I’m glad to know it’s an option.

I’ve seen their coupon in the Valley Quarterly in the past but to my dismay did not see it in the current issue! Dang! I’ve never actually set foot in this diner before but it was pleasant and seemed like a nice place to eat.

The Pizza

With such a large crowd, with a diverse set of eating requirements, I opted for three larges from each joint. We settled on a large cheese, large mushroom & green pepper, and large sausage.

Seen here are the sausage pizzas. Easthampton Diner on the left, Valley Pizza on the right.

Both pizzas, despite different opinions about what a sausage is, appear pretty similar from the top down. Also, Village Pizza cuts their slices into square shapes, similar to the way Mimmo’s does it, so let’s see if their quality matches up to one of the top pizzas in Northampton!

The Crust

We noticed that both pizzas were quite greasy, maybe some of the greasiest we’ve seen, and the crusts soaked a bunch of it up. The crust from Easthampton Diner was a bit dry and overcooked, and I noticed a few people left theirs uneaten. The Village Pizza crust was somewhat better, it was probably more spongy than chewy, but was cooked just right and was pleasant enough.

Winner: Village Pizza

Village Pizza

Category

Easthampton Diner

Crust

The Toppings

Aside from the difference in sausages, the first thing I noticed was the cheese of the Easthampton Diner pizza, which looked the way a Celeste pizza’s cheese does when it comes out of the microwave. There must be some kind of anti-coagulant on that cheese or something, because it didn’t look very appetizing. Only a few people seemed to mind that, though.

As I said earlier, the sausages were the biggest difference in the toppings category. The Easthampton Diner sausages were little rolled up balls, somewhat reminiscent of what Domino’s gave us in an earlier tasting. But they had some nice and interesting flavors of oregano and possibly allspice. The sausages on the Village pie were more like thick pepperonis and were quite spicy, to my delight. Overall, I think I preferred the crisp zing of the Village sausages, since the flavors seemed a bit more appropriate for the pizza.

The vegetable pies seemed about on par with each other. I didn’t hear any complaints about the peppers & mushrooms.

Winner: Village Pizza

Village Pizza

Category

Easthampton Diner

Crust

The X-factor & Final Thoughts

There definitely seemed to be a faction among us that preferred what Easthampton Diner had to offer. Three tasters chose the diner across the board on each category. However, seven chose Village Pizza across the board, with three others mixed, so in the end Village Pizza was determined to be the winner!

This week’s pizzas were some of the greasiest we’ve had in a while, and while Village Pizza did win, it’s definitely got an uphill battle against Antonio’s, so hopefully they’ll bring their A-game!